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Hi Unregistered - just to let you know that tMP is now on Twitter, and we can be followed by visiting theRealtMP - please click here - we'd love to have you as a follower.

I am presently discussing 'promotional material' (car stickers, magnets, cups, sweat-shirts etc) with a supplier - this is the easy bit. What is not so easy is the implementation and development of a MOD for a points system. It is possible, but I'll have to do a bit more of an analysis into the costs and how much work/effort is involved to implement this type of scoring system...

Since we're talking points and prizes, I'll tell you about another forum I'm part of...

For a while they had a points structure. Basically, every post won you 5 points. Every post anybody made in a thread YOU had started earned you 3 points (I think). There was also the ability to "rate" posts. So if someone started posting lots of rubbish just to get more points, people could "disapprove" their posts, and they would lose a point for every disapproval. Anything significantly consructive could be "approved", and earned the poster another 10 points.

Points could be spent in the "store", where you could pay to change your avatar, your forum title, your nickname, someone elses forum title, purchase a "glow" for your nickname, and so on. You could also donate points to other users, and enter a "lottery" whereby you could win thousands of points.

Finally, if you had less than 0 points, you couldn't post at all.

Unfortunately, someone found a bug in the system, and they found they could rate posts more than once if they did it in a particular way. So, two people approved each others' posts multiple times, and they were suddenly the "richest" people on the forums. Then it all got tore down and put "back to basics" because it caused the webmaster lots problems with his SQL databases.

IMHO, I'd say that a forum should be a forum, and not a free for all points competition. Maybe it's a case of striking a balance.

Is the Brass Band mailing list still going? I was on that about 5 years ago, but Compuserve introduced "Spam" filters that blocked the whole thing...

There was a HELL of a lot of people on that... I often received 120 emails every few hours. Maybe some (or all) of them will join here.

Fishsta - if we can get the message across to everyone that this is THE place to discuss Brass Band 'stuff', THE place to get concert/contest info, and most importantly THE place to meet great, like minded people - we're on the way...

Let's hope some of the members of that Compuserve list you elude to discover theMouthPiece.com.

Incidentally... let's encourage some more of this festive "avatar hat" spirit eh... If anyone wants an 'Avatar Xmas Hat' - see me or Fishsta...